Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!ora!daemon
From: kyig6809@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Ken Ilio)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: The Philippines; A Report on Prostituted Women
Message-ID: <1991Jan9.055624.12815@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Date: 14 Jan 91 20:30:09 GMT
Sender: ambar@ora.com (Jean Marie Diaz)
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The Women's Education Development Productivity and Research
Organization (WEDPRO) reported recently on its survey of 300
prostituted women in the cities of Angeles and Olongapo which host the
US military bases.  The report entitled, "Women Entertainers in
Angeles and Olongapo, A Survey Report", was based on the responses of
300 respondents, 150 from each city, who were registered or
non-registered practicioners.

The report contends that although the US bases in these areas act as a
natural magnet for the growth women for hire industries, other
socio-economic factors are at play in the recruitment of women into
prostitution.  These factors which characterize the lives of the
majority of the respondents are: poverty, large family size (most
women came from families larger than the national average which is
about 5.6), early marriage or live-in relationships which broke up
because of their male partners' drinking, gambling, philandering, and
violence.  Twenty six women reported that they had been raped previous
to their employment as entertainers.

The report also gives a profile of the prostituted women.  She is
barely out of her teens and may be a woman who works in a night club,
a "casa" (house), or as a streetwalker.  In Angeles, a street walker
earns an average close to 4000 pesos a month (1 US$ = 28 Pesos,
official rate, black-market rate could be upwards 30 pesos or so); a
casa worker about 2000 pesos a month and a night club worker just
slightly 1500 pesos a month.  They keep gruelling hours, with casa
workers entertaining an average of four customers a night;
streewalkers servicing two to three customers a night; bar women
entertaining one customer a night on top of other duties like dancing
on-stage, waitressing and bar-tending.  They are constantly subjected
to violence from customers and economic exploitation of club and casa
owners or pimps who often determine the amount they earn.  Because of
these conditions, these women are particularly prone to alcohol and
other types of drug abuse.  Not surprisingly, most women can only stay
in this profession for about three years.

Source: Health Alert No. 111.
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Ken Ilio
Vet. Biosciences
UIUC